What started the argument was, curiously enough, a disagreement over the wisdom of enforcing child labor laws. I thought this argument was settled in the 1700’s but I guess I was wrong. That, too, is neither here nor there because I don’t want to talk about the pissing contest.
I want to talk about what passes for law “enforcement” against large corporations by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Department officials said they were preparing a news release and were waiting for Wal-Mart to pay the $135,540 before making the settlement public.
$135,540?! Way to make them dig deep, DOL.
Wal-Mart can’t claim ignorance—even though they did. The defining characteristic of Wal-Mart is its unmatched information management system. Every time a pair of tube socks is dragged across a register scanner the entire supply chain immediately feels the ripple. If an assistant manager in the Spokane cookware department farts, someone in Bentonville smells it and sends a memo back to Spokane. Wal-Mart rigorously monitors employee hours to optimize staffing levels (not to mention minimizes its health insurance costs). There isn’t even plausible deniability here. $135,540?! Maine fined Wal-Mart over $200,000 just a few years ago for the same thing - and that was for the violations in one state with only 20 stores.
Even if you want to argue that Big Brother doesn’t know everything, Wal-Mart knew:
A weeklong internal audit of 128 stores found 1,371 instances in which minors apparently worked too late at night, worked during school hours or worked too many hours in a day.
Wal-Mart claims the report was mistaken because it counted a holiday as a school day, but do you think Wal-Mart would conduct an internal child labor audit on a non-representative week? Neither do I. Wal-Mart is a repeat offender and the fine they have to pay is the corporate equivalent of a speeding ticket in Montana.
That however, is the second most appalling part of the settlement. Number one?
A provision also promises to give Wal-Mart 15 days’ notice before the Labor Department investigates any other “wage and hour” accusations, like failure to pay minimum wage or overtime.
To be fair, the NYT has run a correction because the article in the print edition inadvertently edited out a response from the Department of Labor. The spokesperson claims that the “15 days” provision only applies to child labor violations. I don’t believe the spokesperson—the article indicates that the reporter and the experts quoted in it were working off of a copy of the settlement agreement and I trust their basic reading comp skills. But let’s take her at her word and assume that is what the parties intended the contract to mean: it is still insane.
In the world of commercial contracts, this is known as “notice and opportunity to cure” provision. It is a standard way of preventing people from trying to invalidate contracts over small, easily remdied, technical breaches. This isn’t a commercial relationship, though. It is an agreement between a law enforcement agency and an accused violator of the law. This is the first I am aware that the cops needed to ask permission before they investigated. I assume this will become standard in all criminal investigations:
A search warrant will be executed in two weeks. If we don’t get a note from you assuring us that you currently have no crystal methamphetamine or crystal methamphetamine production facilities. If you happen to be making crystal methamphetamine, please correct this violation and send us a report of your plan to avoid such mishaps in the future.
Is that really how we want federal law enforced?
I have no idea how Wal-Mart pulled this off. OJ’s Dream Team lawyers are a bunch of ambulance-chasing hacks compared to the folks Wal-Mart is using.
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USDOL: A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of the Wal-Mart Corporation
